Blackened forest ham

What do a pound of butter, a pound of delicious unsliced bacon and half of a perfectly roasted roast beef have in common? One bad dog. All three items being readily available, near the top of the cooler, not far from a dog bed. A dog that was left at home by his lonesome and feeling sorry for himself. Castro, our black lab, has gotten used to us being around. Oh, and the ham at the bottom of the cooler would've had that dog in common too. Except for 20 or so barf spots with butter foil all over the yard.

There is apparently too much of a good thing.

There's not a lot can send me over the top.But when I stepped out of the truck and saw the remaining chunk of butter still in it's wrapper and next to that a package from, oh my fucking god, the bacon. I looked at my  bloated, farting, puking dog, I grabbed the butter and threw it repeatedly in his face. Yelling and screaming till my voice hurt. I hadn't yet noticed the roast missing. I had plans. Yummy fucking plans.

But my story is really about a ham. The one piece of meat that Cas' big bulging gut isn't trying to digest.
We try to console ourselves, Well at least he didn't eat the ham. I run at the cats who are joyfully licking the plate where the roast used to be. Well at least the house is warm, Dennis offers. Which means the door latched properly before we left. Castro has been known to do the downward dog lazily off the couch just as we are arriving home. This wouldn't be a huge deal except that he won't close the door behind himself.

Oh yeah, the ham.
Castro is banished to the outdoors, me snarling at him each time I go out to the cooler to set about cooking said ham. Something that will feed us for three days. We'd had enough meat to feed us for six or seven. Grrr, I say to Castro won't look at me. Slamming the lid down and heaving the propane heater on top of that. Mumbling something like fucking asshole as I protectively cuddle my ham and go back inside.

Just after Christmas... a Dutch oven jam packed with turkey. Turkey for days. A heavy Dutch oven with a lid, the one I cook bread in, the same one I cooked the roast in and the one I am now preparing to bake a ham in. A well-oiled machine.

It was miraculously nudged off the table by the same dog but we had just forgiven him for that. He's old and we love him - old not being an excuse to eat all the meat and butter, but rather we'd be sad if he died of a broken heart in the night. Se we better hurry up and forgive him again. Not tonight though. And at least we still have the ham.

Now, I don't know how it happened but the ham that I baked for two hours in a woodstove, drafts closed and not much going on inside came out - potatoes, salad and peas waiting for the big moment - mean and ugly. Smoking. Couldn't tell if there was much of anything left in the Dutch oven, just a burnt-black stink that quickly filled our little house. Squatting on my haunches in front of the stove poking a shrivelled chunk of charcoal proved to be to much for me. I headed off to my bed, the words at least we still have the ham a taunting memory. I cried myself to sleep. Well, actually Dennis rubbed me to sleep.

The Dutch oven was set outside for two days before I decided to see if I could clean it up, bring it back to a loving, happy life. The mean smoke was long gone and with a less emotional examination and fork poking I could see a lot of pink-colored meat. My ever-happy baby offered to clean 'er up, and out of the substantial and tasty remains we skipped to our usual last meal using a ham, pea soup. And, yea, even unto the last lovin' spoonful, we saw that it was good.

Tammy

Untapped, unthawed

The following recipes are only guidelines. Snow is not always capable of balling up. With drier snow be prepared to use up to ten times the amount called for. 

Coffee for two- approx 24 wet snowballs. Bring balls to a full boil. Pour in 3/4cup coffee. Continue to boil for ten minutes then perform the smack down. Two hard hits, pot on stove. Let the grounds settle for a wee moment and enjoy.

Teeth brushing- Two to three snow balls, melt before attempting to rinse.

Shower- One snowman's head will give you a sufficient amount to get squeaky clean. I recommend saving a few snowballs to cool your water in the event that you've left it heating for too long. I also recommend saving your bath water to wash the clothes you were just wearing. Generally I find my skin to be cleaner than my clothes.

Dishes- One snowman's head oughtta do it. Although in the old days with six kids we used to use the whole snowman, ass and all.

Cooking- Just have three or four pots on the go at all times. Eight to ten snowballs in each. In the course of a day you may find yourself using up to one big belly of a snowman. I like pasta. This will give you hand washing water while you cook. Very handy where there are no taps.

Animals- We have a lab and two cats so not a big deal but they need about two head's worth in a day.

Laundry- This is a tremendous effort so don't be shocked that for two to three people you'll use up to eight snowmen. Now I realize nobody, not even me, wants to wash that much laundry in a day, so if you can reuse the snowman's head from your shower it will save you time. One load, and a very small one at that, will run you up a head a pop.

Drinking- One or two heads. Melted of course. Do the melting before you get thirsty.

Toilet flushing- OK I don't have a toilet but I know how they work. And I've done the math...kinda. I figure this is where you'll want to get the kids involved. It won't matter where they find the snow. Unlike your coffee or cooking water. The edge of the road, even the dog run will do. Maybe even preferable. You don't want to keep flushing your drinking water down your toilet. I figure eight to ten snowmen in your bathroom at all times. That will last a family of four maybe two days. So with each new dump get the kids making those snowmen. Your gonna need 'em.                                                                              

-Tammy

What we did to the house

If you're driving off into the sunset on Highway 6 between Lavington and Vernon and you squint off the road at the right moment you"ll see the last, low light shining right through a barn. The lovely old building has wide gaps between the planks that clad its walls and the baking light widens them and blurs their edges, lighting up the whole structure as if it is about to collapse in a heap of glowing coals.
So when Tammy said she wanted to rip all the drywall and insulation out of two thirds of our old hippy house and let the light stream in I didn't say are you fucking crazy. I said oh y'mean like that barn? And she nodded without hesitation. Yeah. Like that barn.
Our curious castle was built thirty years ago. The vision was my dad's, as was a lot of the labor. The rest of the work, and a lot of expertise, was contributed by whoever happened to be around. Which is quite a list, dominated by visiting remnants of the hippie thing. And we, of course, the kids.
I noted above the approximate time in which our house was built. I should have said almost built because it was never quite finished. My parents finally moved to town once and for all before the place was quite complete.
To their immense credit they've occasionally made serious noises about selling out in town and finishing the story  back out here. It may well have happened but for their differing definitions of a comfortable life in the bush.
My dad, who will be 81 in a few months, would gladly end his days taking his bedtime toke beside a yak dung fire under a tarp before rolling off to sleep in a pile of dry leaves with a dog and a couple cats snoring at his feet. My mom prefers an additional ammenity or two, although she's totally down with the dog and the cats. So they visit. Mom's coming next week.
Comming to see what we did to the house. We've tried to describe it but I don't think it quite took. They've no doubt heard whisperings from baffled grandchildren. I'm pretty sure the kids think we're crazy. Specifically about the house. In more general terms I know they think we're crazy. Except Kelty. Cause he's crazy too.
Anyway, I never batted an eye. Cool, I said.
It was almost as much work as insulating the place and drywalling it in the first place. Rippin' it all back out. Ten years later. Many dump runs. Many snide debates with my favorite enemy the dump lady. Tammy did most of the actual rippin'. I loaded, unloaded and drove. It took about a week, in the final glow at the end of another glorious Indian summer. To tear away the earnest effort and expense invested in a very different time. Till there were a lot of cracks in everything. Till the light came streaming in. In horizontal ribbons that swarmed with settling destruction dust.
Normally I let those song references drop without a sound. It's a bit of a disease. But indulge me while I labor  the Leonard lines for a moment or two. Cause here's what you have to understand about what we've done to the house. It is a repudiation and a belated repair of what we tried to do to it the first time around. Which was to make it, yes, a Perfect Offering.
We've painted house for money for many years and we get the good ones. Million dollar mansions. Monolithic monuments to rampant consumption and waste. Seven thousand square foot abomonations often occupied by two little retired people hogging way too much money, energy and other resources. Two little people who could live comfortably in something half the size of their garage. Say, the half that holds the RV. Something that could be built with what they spent on their countertops. Or, for that matter, they could live comfortably in the RV. We don't work on those new houses anymore. We do little repaints for real people in real homes. Cause it's real.
But  still not our idea of real. Though, we realize, that is what we were trying to in some measure recreate with all our townie finishing. Trying to cover up everything we're here for. Pretending to live this life while busily tacking on a tacky apology.
Now, if it seems like I'm being a little hard on drywall and insulation, it's because that as far as we got. There was to be a lot more tacking on to come.
Let me be clear. If you try to survive a Canadian winter, heating only with wood and without insulation in a 1200 square foot house with 24-ceilings in some places, you'll either die or change your mind. And drywall is a damn efficient way to finish an interior wall. Talking time and money both. And, yes, with all those kids we really did need all that space. The bullshit isn't so much in what we did but in why we did it and where we were headed from there.
But we no longer need the space. And we never needed the bullshit.
So now the winterized portion of the place totals about 350 square feet. Easy to heat. Open-windows-in-a-cold-snap easy. One upstairs bedroom, kept cozy with a large metal vent in the floor and the handy tnedency of heat to rise. The walls are unfinished as yet. When they are, it'll probably include some drywall.
The rest of the place is a big, wooden three-season tent. Eventually we'll pull the rest of the windows out (we've relocated a few) and let the rain fall in if it wants to like at the Honolulu airport.
There's tools out there, a week or so of firewood in a cozy stack, photos stapled all over the walls. The dog and cats sleep out there. In the warm months, so do we. Up in the loft. with a good roof and a good view. And now windows. Just big square holes where they used to be. And cracks. That's where the air gets in.
It's a workshop, a studio, a mighty porch. A place to play music, write, file a chainsaw, hang a deer, can some beets, barbecue or just hang out and be cool. Hell, do whatever you want out there, I don't care. Decorate, maybe. Visitors are encouraged to bring artifacts. Antlers, axe heads, odd-looking bottles. You name it.
If there's one lesson I should have learned from all those hippies I grew up among, it's that if you're going to be a weirdo, you might as well not piss around.
We'll definitely never again piss around trying to turn this place into something it's not. Something so much less than what its roots deserve.
We've seen where that leads. We ran screaming. All the way home.

                                                                                                                                                 -Dennis

Mountains o' things

I have three pairs of La Sportivas, a very expensive pair of mountaineering boots, a pair of rock climbing shoes and a sweet pair of running shoes. I have a pair of Sorels which I found in Value Village for $25, brand spankin' new except for what would have been a $200 price tag. I have one pair of Salomon hiking boots. I also have the female whimsical black leather boots, two different pairs. I have one pair of heels, black. My son recently bought me a beautiful pair of moccasins and that is, holy crap, a lot of footwear for one person.
I like to buy things, so that brings me to the reason behind me thowing out far more than my share of things. Filling the dump with my garbage.
Sometimes over the years of kids and mess I've longed for just one pair of boots and a backpack all the while creating more garbage in my wake.
I hate clutter. And with six kids all of whom bring more than their share of crafty things home from school I am proud to say I've managed to hang on to a handfull of treasures. These treasures being what I call survivors of housecleaning rampage.                                                                            
Since moving back to the bush, the dream of providing for ourselves has led me to a new realization that almost anything can be useful. Especially when you only buy useful stuff. So I keep it. No garbage. I'm thinking of ways to use things I don't even have yet.
What will I do with the rabbit fur? What can we do with the chicken guts (we don't have chickens yet) dog and cat food? What about the ashes from the stove? Soap. The soapy water can settle and go the garden. The rain? The snow? The trees?
If we don't buy it chances are we won't have to throw it out.
My food packaging will be a root cellar.
We have a year's worth of garbage out back overflowing, car parts, paint cans, metal, old shoes and plastic. Can't wait to get it out of sight out of mind, because that's what we do with garbage right?
When I look at it my first thought is 'wow' followed by 'why on earth did we buy that'? Do all six kids need a camp chair? Do all six kids need a bike for every year? Do all six kids need that much freakin' plastic?
And really, how many couches can one family go through? I counted and we've had more than 20 between the two of us. And don't ask about the electronic crap that no family should ever have to live without.
I feel a dump run coming on.
Kids equal garbage.
No I didn't call them garbage, just everything they touch. Skittles anyone? Gold?
My kids are gone. People keep telling me that your kids are never really gone. With regards to turning our things into garbage? Yup, they're gone.
My new thoughts to live by hold a world of magic for me.
First off, I won't forget about my local cobbler. I have a lot of good boots.
Second I don't feel pressure to buy much of anything and as time goes by I will have that root cellar.
And a helpful little thing to remember is to darn your own socks, mend your clothes, refinish that bench, use those cans, buy things in bulk, get a cover for that ratty old blanket. Lay your own eggs and grow your own food.
The one thing I won't use is mine or Dennis' (or your's if you visit) crap, although some do. Y'know, human compost. That's just gross.
It's done, like dinner.                                                                                                           -Tammy

Sufficient unto the day...

Outside the hastilly installed window, the snow is deep but sagging and the trees are bare. We're in one of those January warm snaps that happen every year now, although everyone still pretends to be surprised. It's raining.
To the right of the window, Tammy is sipping a coffee, reading a book. To the left are bookshelves. Laden mostly with books but also with wine. Theose cheap four-litre boxes look like elegant encyclopedias among the real books and the reds stay somewhere near the right temperature. Tacky plastic taps potrude convenientlyover the shelf below. The whites are chillin' in the outside part. Where we got weird with the house.
On top of the bookshelf are canned goods. There's no root cellar yet. And not much space in here. But it's all, in roughly the words of Arlow Guthrie, comin' around on the gi-tar. The question, of course, is what 'it' will look like. 'It' is, of course, self-sufficiency.
Winter, in the cozy mythology surrounding rural life, is a time to rest and reflect. To enjoy, including quite literally, the fruits of the warmer months' toil. It's a mythology we believe in and we're heading in that direction.
But in the meantime the canned goods atop the bookshelves are from the Superstore. President's Choice, No Name, Unico. Fair enough for this year but that can't continue. And the wine boxes aren't that cheap. Justifiable only when you're wise enough to understand they're a grocery item. One of your crucial food groups. But when you make it yourself it's also practically free.
Freedom is the whole point. Freedom to be where we want to be. Doing what we want to do. We used to drive to town every day and work our asses off. We made gobs of money but we never had any of it. And we had no asses.
We know we'll have to continue going off to make money for a little while yet. Got some old debts and some things we want to buy. There'll always be things we want money for, in fact, but our goal is to get to the point where we don't need it. Where, from the perspective of comfortable, contented survival, the state of the economy, or its continued existence for that matter, is irrelevant. This is partly out of preference and partly in preparation.
Weird times loom. The double-edged sword of peak oil and climate change is about to begin slashing great bloody chunks out of everything some of us are still dumb enough to take for granted. And if not, if we're the dumb ones, preference remains.
First and foremost, we're back out here in pursuit of self-sufficiency because neither of us can imagine a finer life. And, yes, we're still imagining most of it. We showed up late, and winter's like that for us homesteaders. We're in a bit of a holding pattern. Enjoying the fruits of the Superstore. Resting and reflecting.
Reflecting, among other stuff, on precisely what is meant by the phrase 'self-sufficiency'. As uttered by us. Here it is then.
Self-sufficiency means the ability to grow, raise, pick, kill, gather, preserve, prepare and repair everything required to sustain our lives in a style that the vast majority of the planet's population would envy.
Simple. Not that we'll probably ever do all those things at the same time. But at some time.
The point is to be able to.
And we'll do most of the things most of the time. Cause we can't imagine a finer life.
Except once in a while when we imagine a road trip or a flight to somewhere far or a distant mountain that's just gotta be climbed.
Any volunteers to water the garden and feed the chicken's while we're gone?
                                                                                                                                              -Dennis

Waxed at Welkmart

The guy who owns Welkmart holds up a small plastic bag containing about a pound of shaved wax. Cinched off with a sparkly twist tie. He proudly tells us it comes with a pre-cut wick.
We had come into his extremely cluttered domain expecting to find big bricks of wax.
Dennis, with approximately 10 metres of wick in his hand, outlines our true quest.
Do you know where we can buy it in bulk?
He stops to think although he doesn't have much time for us. He's got to get back to barking orders at his employees.
Those are new, stack 'em at eye level. I want to move 'em quick.
Eye level in many cases, is less than half way up. Cool crap is stacked to the ceiling. Heaped in heaps. Piled in piles.
Well there's a place in Winnipeg, he finally offers, it's not parafin wax, it'll cost you, not cheap.
Dennis tells him you used to be able to get it. Big chunks of it.
He's got no time for that.
Well you used to get a lot of things in bulk.
Started as a retort. Ended in a nostalgic pause.
He's done with Den, though. Looks at me, assessing. Were we hippies? Yuppies? And it occurs to me now that he could most likely smell us. We were newly returned to the house in the bush and were having stovepipe issues. Dennis has been asked if he works at Helmut's Sausage. But I think what he meant was this ain't 1910, you bozos. You can have these for 27 cents each. I got them from the Bay where they were selling them for five bucks.
Dropping the tiny bags back into their box he turns and walks back to his duties as boss.
Where does he get all this stuff?
I picture him during one of his visits to the Bay, some back office with a bigwig. Holding up one of those little bags of wax.
I know these aren't moving. I'll take 'em. Ten cents a piece.
The Bay manager, rocking and thinking.
How do you know they're not moving?
But he gives in.
Another deal sealed. I imagine the King of Welk Mart patting the Bay guy on the shoulder.
It's the Bay, I hear him saying mercilessly, nothing moves in here but clothes for old ladies and housewares.
Out behind the store, giddy over his purchases of do-it-yourself candle kits. He'll move 'em.
Dennis is moving toward the box, almost holding his nose. Twenty-seven cents. He looks at me.
There's quite a few in here.
I roll my eyes, too good for Bay wax kits.
We take 'em all.                                                                                                                         -Tammy

Not even the birds

Wait. Come back.
The first to peck at the walls looking for snug bugs.
But now find only cracks, open and airy.
Nobody understands what we've done to the house. Not even the birds.
Come around the corner. You'll love it. I saved you all the fat.

Now I see them, two of them. And whiskey jacks.
Why are they on the wrong side of the house?

My feeder still hangs untouched.
The chickadees won't go near it.
The squirrel leaping from tree to tree has better things to do.
He could have it.

Today, even Stellar's jays
I stare at my feeder. Nothin'.

Greys with red heads.
I don't know them and they don't know me.
high above my feeder in towering trees.
I sneak over to the window, they flutter off. Black and white wings.
Gone.

Twenty minutes and now not a peep.

Dropping tiny chunks of snow, filling my little pot.
Thinking about mountains, climbing, altitude sickness and water.
I stare past my feeder that has yet to feed anything.
My mountain calls. The trail that will take me past creeks, valleys, up through the morning fog, and birds.

But first, my tea.
Maybe tomorrow. I'm talking to my bird feeder.

-Tammy

Approach the dandelion?

I was awakened, occasionally, through the night, by the uproar.

Louder every time. My dad and his buddy Dan, an hour from town and out of everything else, had expropriated my gallon of gently curing dandelion wine. Doomed to be finished before it was done. A long, loud night.

What's this?

Her name was Jackie, that was asking, from California. Santa Cruz. Californians popping up wasn't at all rare on this earlier homestead in the waning days of the hippy thing. All kinds of Americans. And city people, just as exotic, from Vancouver, maybe, or just Prince George. Town. Three hours away.

Oh, those are dandelion roots. Dennis is drying them to make coffee. My mom, in response.

Then Jackie again: You mean Denny?

Denny's my deeply strange, hippy uncle who lived on the land with us, he helped buy it after all, during most of the hippy thing. He would eventually manage to drown himself in a boat bailing accident off his home on some remote island in what's now known as the Salish Sea. One of a handful of times I've cried as an adult. 

No. My mom gestured at the skinny, scruffy 11-year-old that was me. Dennis.

Oh. Jackie is surprised. Good for you. Addressing me.

At least I got to drink the coffee stuff. It was, is, delicious.

And, of course, like so many people, we ate our share of dandelion greens in salads. There are no stories attached to those, however. No childhood experiments or youthful exploits. They too, however, remain delicious.

Finally, there's Bullseye. Or DDT or Napalm or whatever ghastly poisons city dwellers soak their surroundings with to keep them beautiful. To exterminate everything that isn't part of the plan.

We don't understand the plan. Fair enough. We've got another one. Oh, and we've got the land. The most precious gift any parents could bestow on thoroughly unworthy kids. Just under 80 acres of forest and field and stream. The one chunk remaining from several that came and went during the hippy thing. Used to be 160 acres but it was subdivided after the commune broke up. Lost a few more acres when the road officially became a road and the highways department took a few acres as right of way. They paid for it, of course, the downpayment for my parents place in town.

We actually lived on the place, Tammy and I, for 10 years. Moved out here with a bunch of vague notions and a pack of little children. The vague notions came to nothing. We loved where we lived but we didn't get to spend much time there. Had to go off and make money. 

The pack of kids came to considerably more. They all grew up decently and then they started to disappear. Let's see, as of this writing there's one in Vernon, one in William's Lake, one on Vancouver Island, one in Edmonton and one in Vietnam. Oh, and one still with us. Occasionally. 

We moved back to civilization about the time the kids started disappearing. Thinking that we were burnt out on this life. That we needed a change. This was an absolute disaster that lasted less than a year. Civilization is a great place to visit. But we can't spend too much time there. Cause we truly don't get the plan. We stayed just long enough to figure out that the change we needed was not to live elsewhere but to truly live here.

So we're back. Back (yes damn it) to the land. And maybe, to paraphrase acoustic folk-blues genius Kelly Joe Phelps, we can get it right this time. Getting it right, to us, means reaching a level of self sufficiency whereby we only leave here because we want to. That's it. That's the plan. Simple. With a lot left to figure out. Luckily we've got some time. Our approach to the little old dandelion will help. Letting it live to provide us with wine, coffee and salad greens. And a cute little symbol of all that we want and don't want. Our new mantra is: we've got all day. Not quite every day, yet, but that's where we're heading. And with any lucky we have a lot of days ahead.

-Dennis